FAQ
General Questions What Is Prehistoric Wiki? Prehistoric Wiki is a free content, freely editable online encyclopedia about everything "Prehistoric", including the Dinosaurs, Prehistory in the media and even classification. Who Owns Prehistoric wiki? : Prehistoric Wiki is hosted by Wikia, a free wiki hosting service operated by Wikia, Inc., a for-profit organization founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Wikia receives all profit from the Google AdSense advertisements. Wikia is responsible for technical issues with the site; it also sometimes provides legal advice and is our legal Designated Agent. :However, Prehistoric wiki is not "owned" by anyone in the traditional sense. Anyone can reuse it elsewhere or even download the database dump and make a mirror or "fork" (not that we would be very excited in the latter case, though). When And Why Was prehistoric Wiki Created? Prehistoric Wiki was started by User:Spino King on 5th February 2010 as a project that would provide a more complete coverage of Prehistory than Wikipedia was allowed to by its notability policies. For example, Prehistoric Wiki already has some animals which in wikipedia, were grouped into larger aticles with not much detail put into the individule animals. A smaller wiki is also easier to manage, customize and verify (when it comes to factual accuracy and canonicity). : Our first articles are forked from the English Wikipedia, although most articles will be completely rewritten to the point that almost no Wikipedia material remains, and the material that does remain mostly constitutes imported policies and guidelines. Who is Responsible For The Prehistoric Wiki Content? : You are! In fact, you can edit this very FAQ! However, note that Prehistoric Wiki is an unofficial, community-driven project, edited by hundreds of people unfamiliar with each other, we cannot possibly guarantee any degree of accuracy and validity, although we do strive for both accuracy and verifiability — this means that everyone should be able to verify the facts mentioned in every article. : You can find who contributed to a particular article by looking at its edit history. What Keeps Prehistoric Wiki From Being Destroyed? Every Prehistoric Wiki article contains an edit history (accessible from the "history" tab by default), which records all edits to the article since it was created. In case someone makes a bad edit (intentionally or not) by vandalizing the article or inserting fanon, anyone can revert (restore) the article to an earlier, better revision. How Can i Contact The Project? The Help Desk is the generall place for asking questions or giving feedback. However, if it is serious, contact the Administrator (User:Spino King) as soon as possible. Technical Questions What Wiki Software Does prehistoric Wiki Use? Prehistoric Wiki (and the rest of Wikia) uses MediaWiki, the same software as Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wikia also uses some third-party extensions, which are available to all hosted wikis. Where should I report technical issues? : If they are indeed technical (like the site being down, or weird error messages) and not something within the users control (like templates), you can report them to the Wikia support channel on IRC. If you do not know how to do this, please contact the Administrator (User:Spino King) as soon as possible. Do I have to register? : While registration is optional, it is strongly recommended. You can view and edit pages as an anonymous user, but registration hides your IP address and gives you the ability to upload files, move (rename) pages, and edit so-called semi-protected pages (after a few days). : Most importantly, registration gives you an identity and makes you a full-fledged member of the Prehistoric Wiki community. After you register and make your first edit, another user will usually greet you on your talk page and give links to some useful information pages. Registration is the first step in earning reputation and respect, and who knows, maybe one day you will be nominated to beuracrat, or even Administrator status in a few years! Editing questions Where can I discuss pages? : Each page has a built-in discussion (talk) page, which can be accessed via the "discussion" tab. While discussing articles, please limit your posts to the article content, not the article subject. For example, the Talk:Spinosaurus page should not be used to find out who thinks that "Spinosaurus" was the most powerfull theropod dinosaur and could kill all others but discussions whether (and how) it should be expanded, whether a certain image should be replaced or a section reworded are perfectly acceptable. Somebody reverted my edits, what should I do? : Generally, not revert to your version in turn. This can start a revert war (also known as edit war), which is seen as disruptive because it prevents other contributors from improving the same article. Instead, question yourself whether the revert was justified, look at the edit history for the reason given, and try to settle the case on the talk page. What is a minor edit? : A minor edit is an edit that it is so non-noteworthy that users monitoring the article can usually skip it. Examples are spelling and grammar corrections, corrections of formatting and template usage. Addition and omission of content, as well as factual corrections, are not minor edits and should not be marked as such.: If you accidentally marked a non-minor edit as a minor one, make a dummy edit (an edit that affects the source wikitext but not the output, like changing one space to two or vice versa), mark it as non-minor, and explain the problem. What is a semi-protected page? : Semi-protected pages are pages that can only be edited by registered users that have been registered for 4 days or longer. It is done to prevent pages from being vandalized by anonymous or very new users. Like full protection, it is only used in extreme cases. If full protection is a last resort measure, semi-protection can be thought of as a "penultimate resort". What is a fully protected page? : A fully protected page is one which can only be edited by Administrators. Very few articles should be in this state: it is primarily reserved for frequently used templates, where vandalism or misguided good-faith edits can cause problems on multiple articles. It may also be used temporarily to forestall edit disputes. Community/political questions Can I become an administrator? : Administrators hold much power, but also have much responsibility. There are a number of prerequisites for becoming an administrator, and whether or not a nomination succeeds largely depends on what other users think of you. Who defines the policies? : The policies are determined by consensus: proposed new policies and changes are not approved until a decision that suits everyone or almost everyone is found. A discussion may start as a simple vote or even a simple suggestion or question, but usually, the end result is neither of the originally proposed options (in case of a vote), but rather some kind of fusion of different ideas. The process is often painful, but necessary. How can I contact an administrator? : Just as you would contact any other user, by leaving a message on their talk page. If you have no preference for a specific administrator, simply leave a message in the Help Desk, making sure it is Addressed to Administrators: at least one administrator is usually present there at any given time. Soon, you will be able to contact Administrators in the Admin Noticebaord, and IRC for reporting action that must be stopped immediately, such as mass blanking or mass move vandalism, when they are completed.